The Chrysanthemums

A detailed Summary of The Chrysanthemums

John Steinbeck, in his short story "The Chrysanthemums" depicts the trials of a woman attempting to gain power in a man's world. Elisa Allen tries to define the boundaries of her role as a woman in such a closed society. While her environment is portrayed as a tool for social repression, it is through nature in her garden where Elisa gains and shows off her power. As the story progresses, Elisa has trouble extending this power outside of the fence that surrounds her garden. In the end, Elisa learns but does not readily accept, that she possesses a feminine power weak for the time, not the masculine one she had tried so hard to achieve through its imitation.

The work begins with a look at the story's setting. "The Chrysanthemums" was written in 1938, and the story takes place roughly around the same time. It is winter in Salinas Valley, California. The most prominent feature is the "grey-flannel fog" which hid the valley "from the rest of the world" (396). The mountains and valleys and sky and fog encapsulate everything inside as a "closed pot" (396). Inside this shut-off habitat the environment is trying to change. Just as the farmers are waiting for an unlikely rain, Elisa and all woman are hopeful for a change in their enclose

Now Elisa turns to preparing herself for the evening out with her husband. She scrubbed every part of her body wiping the dirt or this sign of her strength from nature off of her body. She now wants to work her feminine attractive charms for her husband, but even more for herself to see if she still has such powers at the age of thirty-five. In the mirror "she tightened her stomach and threw out her chest" (402). She dressed with "her newest underclothing and her nicest stocking and the dress which was the symbol of her prettiness" (401). She continues to emphasize her female body including reddening her lips, one of the ultimate signs of femininity. Elisa is working on her physical beauty, rather than her strength.

Again she tries to find something in common with the man and trusts she knows how he must feel traveling alone across the land. For a second time, Elisa seems to turn this mistaken connection into something sexual. Remembering the night sky she says, "Every pointed star gets driven into your body. It's like that. Hot and sharp and&emdash;lovely" (400). From her position still on the ground where she is closest to her power source, she reaches out towards the man's pants. With the narrator's description of her like a fawning dog, she seems to have something akin to puppy love.

But Elisa's sense of power hits a bump in the road. As the drive into Salinas, Elisa sees the chrysanthemum sprouts thrown into the road. Apparently, she expected this after her final encounter with the man, and notices he kept the pot she had given him, since it had some monetary worth. As they passes the peddler's wagon, she turned away so as not to see it. Henry noticed a change in her saying, "'Now you're changed again'" (403). Her strength weakens. She questions her husband if the men in the prizefights ever hurt one another. Henry responds in the affirmative. Finally she asks, "'Do women ever go to the fights?" (403). Elisa is wondering if as a woman she could enter a man's world of business and other "masculine" responsibilities. Her husband now asks if she wants to go and she responds, "Oh, no. No. I don't want to go. I'm sure I don't" (403). Elisa now fully understands that she does not want to gain power from a man's sphere in the world. The "wine" she wants at dinner is a way to show her acceptance of this fact, of the typical married life of a woman. She condemns herself to attempting to gain power through normal female attempts in a static society. Elisa cries at the end, making her look "like an old woman" with the realization of this fact, that indeed, she will continue to age into the role of an old woman still enclosed by society.

As her husband comes to talk with her, while she enjoys showing off her garden, she seems to feel sub-subservient to him. As he kids her about going to the prize fights later that day, she responds in a breathless tone that she would not like them, uncomprehending the joking nature of his comment. She goes back to her work, back to her orderly world of the earth and the chrysanthemums.

Yet Elisa's power is not used for "masculine" activities; in fact, her power is derived from a feminine source, nature. Mother Nature, a female, controls the environment. This female power is part of matriarchal lineage since Elisa'a mother also "could stick anything in the ground and make it grow" (397). She enjoys coming into contact with the earth as she digs and pushes the dirt around her chrysanthemums. She destroyed pests with her fingers and also put these fingers "into the forest of new green chrysanthemum sprouts that were growing around the old roots" (397). Her fingers are described as "terrier," literally of the earth.

d lives. Steinbeck foreshadows, "It was a time of quiet and waiting" (396).

Elisa's source of power is also her point of weakness. After failing for a fourth

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Approximate Word count = 2587
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English